Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan "Outlaw" and Other Stories

by Will C. Barnes

The short winter day began to wane, and darkness was slowly creeping across the white cover that lay over the land. All sense of direction and time had long since left the lad, but he struggled on, the dog limping along at his side.

Just as the last signs of daylight faded away the sheep stopped moving, and he was unable to start them again. He wrapped the lead rope of his horse about a sage bush as best he could, then worked his way through the herd looking for the cause of their stopping. Stumbling and falling over snow-hidden rocks and bushes, he found himself almost stepping off into empty space over a cliff, where the snow had built out from its edge in such a manner as to conceal its presence, and, even as he threw himself back from the step he was about to take, he saw several sheep walk blindly out into the semi-darkness and disappear into the depth below.

The loss of these roused into action every drop of his basco blood. In the dim light he could just make out where the edge of the cliff lay and, carefully working his way along it, beat the stolid mass of animals back from the danger. By this time it was almost dark and he turned back to find his horse, but after half an hour's search gave it up and returned to the herd, hoping the animal might be with them somewhere. He stumbled around in the snow for some time before he came up with the tail enders of the herd slowly working their way through a break in the cliff down which the leaders had evidently gone. He found the herd huddled up in the shelter of the cliff and eagerly looked through them for the pack horse with its precious burden of food and bedding, but without success.

Once he stumbled over several soft objects in the dark which he made out to be some of the sheep that had fallen over the cliff. When he finally realized that the pack horse was gone, he knew where he could at least get his supper and breakfast, and after starting a fire skinned out a hind quarter of one of the fallen sheep and soon had some of it roasting. Fortunately for the boy, he found piled against the cliff a lot of poles that had evidently been part of an old corral, which made it possible for him to keep the fire going all night and over which he huddled dropping off to sleep only to be awakened by his numbed limbs and body.

Eagerly Dummy peered through the falling snow the next day as the gray dawn came slowly into the east. The snow sweeping over the cliff from above had formed a drift that almost completely shut the sheep in as if with a fence and he knew there was no possibility of leaving the shelter where he was until the sky cleared off enough for him to get his bearings. Even then he doubted if it would be possible for the sheep to travel, so deep was the snow.

About noon the snow stopped falling, and Dummy worked his way up to the top of the cliff from which as far as he could see there was but a broad expanse of snow-covered range.

To his left the view was cut off by a small hill that stood close to the cliff. He went over to it and from its top saw below him in the open plain a small board shack with a rough shed stable near it.

Instantly he remembered that, as they passed up with the sheep in the spring, a man and his wife were busy building the shack preparatory to taking up the land about it for dry farming purposes. Eagerly he watched the house for signs of occupancy, but as there was no smoke coming from the chimney, he decided it was empty. Two things interested him, however. One, the fact that the plowed field near the house, being on a slight elevation, was blown almost clear of snow, and the other, there was something half hidden by the house which looked mightily like a stack of hay, although it scarcely seemed that this could be true.

In the field, which covered perhaps forty acres, he saw the possibility of finding a little feed for the sheep until the snow should settle enough to allow them to travel and, if the stack really was hay or any rough feed, his troubles were over for the present at least.

As the lad turned back to camp he realized only too well the difficulty of moving the herd until the snow settled, it being fully eighteen inches deep on the level, and everywhere there were drifts many feet high through which the sheep in their weakened condition could not make their way.